Book Reviews: Pray for the World

Pray for the World by Jason Mandryk (InterVarsity Press)

Have you ever wanted to pray for global missions but didn’t know where to begin? Author Jason Mandryk’s vision has produced Pray for the World, a new version of former Operation World editions. This user-friendly resource provides a complete list of nations with vital statistics and summarized prayer points for individual countries.  

Start-up information includes updates on church growth, charts and maps of demographic trends, and specific on-the-ground reports of answered prayer. The appendices include global facts and figures, along with a list of definitions for terms used throughout the book. The all-important daily prayer calendar provides an alphabetical list of the nations coupled with days of the year, and page numbers for each country provide easy reference.  

This handbook allows mission-minded prayer warriors to join a worldwide chorus of prayer for the nations. Advising Editor Molly Wall writes: “Would we dare to believe God might use it to fuel the fires of intercession around the globe, and even to give rise to a new wave of global mission?

Pray for the World offers the perfect solution for people who desire to pray with knowledge for the nations.     

Mary Pat Johns

Victoria         

Beyond Myself: The Farm Girl and the African Chief by Anita Katherine Dennis (Westbow Press)

In the 1960s, Liberia sent high-achieving students to study in the United States so they could return home to help alleviate poverty. Benjamin Dennis, son of the chief of Vahun, a village near the Sierra Leone border, was among them. He became a distinguished professor at Ohio University, one of the first black Africans with a leadership role at that institution. Meanwhile, a bright-eyed, blond-haired Ohio farm girl enrolled in his Anthropology 101 course. Beyond Myself tells a love story about how their relationship brought about lasting changes affecting the couple, their families and both countries. 

Anita’s parents strongly opposed the relationship. Aside from the racial and cultural barriers, he was much older than she and was the father of a 10-year-old daughter. Her life took several detours while dealing with these obstacles, but the couple finally wed. They visited Liberia regularly and became missionaries for a year, working in Vahun and starting churches in other villages. Their life was no fairytale, but it became a great witness for Christ. She describes being a chief’s wife in Vahun, a professor’s wife in America, the mother of biracial children and loving a man she believed God made for her. Beyond Myself is one woman’s story of courage and faith to follow God’s marvelous—yet sometimes frightening—calling. 

Alice Stone Thomas

Conroe